Polycon EV Version 1.0 EV Nova Plugin
www.geocities.com/arrakis666/index.html
Arrakis666@yahoo.com

===Instructions for use

1 Remove all the plugins from your plugins folder and put them in a safe place.

2 Put the Polycon Core 1, Polycon Core 2, Polycon Core 3 Polycon Graphics 1, Polycon Graphics 2, Polycon Graphics 3 , Polycon Graphics 4 , Polycon Missions, Nova Music, Polycon Ships 1 and Polycon Ships 2 files into the ÒNova plug-insÓ folder in your EV Nova folder.

3 Remove all of the pilots except for the file called ÒLast PilotÓ from your pilots folder and put them in a safe place. Using normal pilots in the Polycon plugin can cause unpredictable results, such as crashes.

4 Launch EV Nova. Assuming you are using a registered version of the program, the plugins should load automatically

Warning, EV plugins should not be taken internally. Consult your doctor before use.

===Backstory

For all that there is, and for all that there will be, scientists have traced it all back to one point. A single species from which all other intelligent life came from. This origin species can be traced back to a single planet, designated .00002, in a gravitational anomaly called the Meta Galaxy. The origin species existence can be traced back to a single location on planet .00002, a single object from which sprang nearly all that we know. this object is called the Cube of Estide, and this is the story of all that came to be because of it.

The origin species are called so because nearly every other intelligent life form came from them. The people of the origin species were not content. Near constant conflict and endless war eventually split the origin species apart. Three factions arose. The Vogons, who valued honor and combat above all else. The Jains, for whom faith and religion was key. And the Takari, to whom technology held the ultimate importance. These factions fought for thousands of years. Ultimately the Vogons nearly annihilated the Jains and drove the Takari to use their advanced technology to pierce the barrier around the Meta Galaxy and flee the Vogons. Over the years the Takari technology had become very advanced, and the Takari gained the ability to create lifeforms of their own. Hundreds of new species sprung up at the hands of the Takari, for the sole purpose of being used as slave labor in Takari mines and factories. No one know for exactly how long the Takari continued this, what is known is that for countless aeons the Takari continued to make new species to flesh out their slave labor force. Each new model was supposed to be stronger, faster, and longer lasting than the last. It was inevitable that if the Takari continued this technological curve that they would eventually make a lifeform strong enough to destroy them. The TakariÕs nemesis was to be the species known as Polyconian. The Takari scientists thought they had developed the perfect soldier with the Polyconian. Immensely strong and crossbreed with massive amounts of Takari DNA, the Polyconians were designed to strip a planet, no matter how hostile, with no recourse. The Takari high command wasted no time in deploying an initial build of the Polyconians on a barren desolate planet to to test their effectiveness. The Takari deployed the Polyconians using a fairly common system in which the slave species would be dumped on a world with no memory of the Takari, allowed to build up a civilization, mining and refining all the planets resources in the process, and then destroyed using a killswitch virus. Once the Polyconians were terminated the Takari could simply walk in and retrieve the fully refined goods the Polyconians had made for their own use and then move on to the next planet. Unfortunately the Polyconian civilization did not rise nearly as fast as the Takari had hoped.To increase the speed of the PolyconianÕs development, the Takari gave the Polyconians a massive technology boost, by giving the then medieval level Polyconians reactor technology. It proved to be a fatal move. With the technology boost the Polyconians quickly discovered the Takari ship on the edge of the system and learned how to listen to the Takari transmissions. With the knowledge of what the Takari were going to do they began to build warships, deep underground, where the Takari probes could not see them. The Polyconians used them to launch an attack against the Takari ship in orbit. It was a futile gesture, the Polycon vessels were no match for the Takari technology. A single ship, with 17000 on board, managed to escape the system. The Takari ,deciding to cut their losses, chose to land immediately and deploy the killswitch virus. Unfortunately the Takari had made another fatal error. The Polyconian contained Takari DNA, which made them like the Takari. Too much like the Takari as it would turn out, the killswitch infected Takari just as well as it infected Polyconians. Within 6 months the Takari were extinct, killed by their own virus.

The surviving ship was cast out onto the universe with no home to return to. With Polycon infected with the killswitch virus, the survivors had no choice but to attempt to land on a different planet. After a sublight journey lasting several thousand years, the Polycon vessel put down on the world of Kraken. Kraken had been settled by the Kraken-Krakor, one of the first species created by the Takari. The advance of the virus had forced the Kraken to flee the world much as the Polyconians had fled theirs. The world was currently host to the Krakor Minor, a primitive sub species of the Kraken. Once the Polyconians landed they had yet another problem to face. The Polyconian could not replicate themselves without the help of the Takari, for, as part of the TakariÕs system for controlling slave species, the Takari had given them no reproductive organs. The infection of their homeworld by the Takari and the dangerous space voyage that had brought them to this world had all but exterminated them, and unless they figured out a way to circumvent this Takari copyright protection, their species would die out. Fortunately a solution was presented in the form of the Krakor Minor. The Krakor Minor could reproduce, and the Polycon scientists felt that with the Polycons adaptive ability, combined with some judicious gene splicing, this power could be theirs as well. So the Polyconians infested the Krakor Minor. This was a mostly successful move, but came at a great price, the Polycons gained the Krakor Minors abilities, but their weaknesses and mortality as well. But the Polyconians were able to replicate themselves, and over a period of sixty thousand years, they regained their numbers, and finally thought of returning to their homeworld. Scouts found that the virus infestation on Polycon had died out, and over a period of several hundred thousand years, the Polyconians recolonized their homeworld, built fleets of warships, and spread across the known universe, following the combat programming the Takari had planted in their brains so long ago. The Takari had made the Polyconians far too strong for the other slave species they had created to stand up to them, their society cut a swath of war and destruction through any species it came in contact with. Many of the other species in the galaxy were wiped out, those that survived were shattered into dozens of splinter groups and factions that were too disorganized to fight back. All the known universe waited, waited. For the Polyconians had become like the Takari before them. Sooner or later, they would have to create their nemesis...

===Known Bugs

You can not dominate planets. I know, that is a pretty major bug, but I have yet to figure out what is causing it, and no one else seems to know what causes it either.

Planets look really lame when they explode. I tried several things(custom booms, animated spobs...) to make planetary destruction look better, but as it stands, planets just kind of ÒpopÓ from normal to destroyed states.

The letter codes for starship classes go C, T, M, from least to most powerful. I know it is not a bug, but after seeing the number of Òwhich is better, a Starbridge class C or a Starbridge class E?Ó questions in the EV Nova forum, I imagine putting this in here will deflect at least one email from someone asking which is better.

The Balgon phased cloak is supposed to not be affected by weapon blasts. However, the flag for cloaking devices to allow them to remain cloaked when hit does not seem to work. Draconen area cloaks also do not work, for the same reason.

Draconen mines attack everyone, even the Draconens that set them.

The mission (Excavation) where you have to bring the Takari ships back to the Miamier does not actually spawn the ships that you are supossed to bring back. For some reason, this mission absolutely refuses to spawn any of its primary or aux ships. I could find no way to fix it so you will just have to deal. A few other missions also sporaticly refuse to spawn auxships but it is not as noticeable.

===Credits/ lawsuit-retarding info.

Thanks to Fireman and Cyber Seduction for providing concept material, to the 68k Mac Liberation Army for much needed Macintosh Zen, to AceBlack, Captian Z, Da Penguin, Fireman, and Cyber Seduction for beta testing this thing, to Cap'n Hector for hosting, and to Accutron (homepage.mac.com/accutron) for providing the main menu font, main menu music, and numerous bits of concept material

No credits section would be complete without thanking Ambrosia Software, Matt Burch, and ATMOS for making EV Nova.

Email any comments, complaints, etc to Arrakis666@yahoo.com. If you are going to send me email saying something along the lines of ÒThis plugin is so bad, that it made me want to vomitÓ then at least tell me why it made you want to vomit.

All original components of this plugin Copyright 2002 AnubisTTP, Arrakis666@yahoo.com. Escape Velocity: Nova (c)1996-2002 Ambrosia Software, Inc.

You are not allowed to commercially exploit this level, i.e. put it on a CD
or any other electronic medium that is sold for money without my explicit
permission! That includes charging people to download it. (Scary as it may sound, it has happened to me before).

In case you wanted to know the programs used to make this plugin were Bryce 4, Poser 4, Photoshop 3,Fontographer, Clarisworks, EnRLEDeRLE, Resedit, Nova Tools, MakeSpin ,Soundedit 16, and Kai's Power Tools 3 (whew). All of the ships,outfits, ect were modeled and rendered in Bryce 4, so all those people that slam Bryce and say it is no good for ships/units/outfits are wrong. It is based loosely of a roleplaying game I play called Polycon.